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The Wall Street Journal has a nice graph selection taking a look at U.S. presidents’ job-approval ratings. The site showcases the average approval ratings over time of modern presidencies from Truman to Bush. The trends are not always what you might expect and some of the comparisons are actually quite enlightening. In addition to the overview graph they have a graph for each president with annotations of important events during the presidency and how they relate to the measures on the graph.
Most presidents start on a high note and rise little before approval begins to fall (the Bush Presidencies represent an anomaly here, both rising quite a bit after election.) Another interesting observation in the continuation represented since Reagan. Before the Reagan presidency there are sharp breaks between presidencies - usually going from a very low point to a very high one. The Reagan presidency, through the current one, shows a strong continuation between the approval ratings of different presidents over time (including Democrat Clinton). This is an interesting observation. Is it the case that the approval rating represents a more general picture of the society and less of the particular president? Perhaps people are just generally more apathetic (new guy but more of the same). George W. Bush also shows one of the highest approval ratings (coinciding with the invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11). The effect of war on approval ratings is interesting in itself. The three highest points are immediately following WWII, the liberation of Kuwait, and the start of the War on Terror.
It’s somewhat surprising I haven’t seen these kinds of graphs around before, particularly given how much people discuss approval ratings.
